The Orioles will be seeing their former slugger on a division rival for the next few years.
Tony Taters is officially going to be an Oriole no more. It’s been apparent for months that the O’s had moved on once they signed outfielder Tyler O’Neill, but Anthony Santander remained a free agent and you could always wonder if something weird might happen, at least until today. As first reported by MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, the Blue Jays and Santander have a contract agreement. The final deal is still pending a physical.
We should all prepare ourselves now for the reality that Santander is going to hit a home run against his former team on Opening Day, since the Orioles are opening in Toronto. Being as Santander is a typically streaky guy, maybe we should even prepare for him to have four home runs by the end of the first three games of the season. That will not be much fun.
The case for why the Orioles were unlikely to try to retain their own free agent in this case was always clear. Santander is fresh off a walk year where he bashed 44 homers, topping 35 for the first time in his career. From that platform, he’s been seeking a lengthy contract. The O’s have generally been reluctant to give out multiple years – only O’Neill’s gotten a multi-year deal from Elias and it seems obvious that the O’s hope he takes the opt-out after year one – and Santander wanted a big deal.
Beyond the length of the contract, there are warts even to the strengths that Santander showed this year. He’s a low batting average guy who doesn’t walk enough to offset that, so he’s also a low OBP guy. His defensive value is limited and probably not going to improve. His next year will be his age 30 season, so the slugger aging curve could hit hard before the contract expires.
Though Santander has played in 150+ games in each of the last three seasons, he’s had a track record of injury problems from the earlier years in his career. And, really, he just didn’t have a consistent demonstration of doing what he did in 2024, so it’s not guaranteed that he’ll even go into 2025 and beyond with 40+ homers as his baseline.
All of that is easily understood on a rational level as to why the Orioles would not venture into what The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported is a five-year, $90 million contract agreement. There is a team option for a sixth year, Rosenthal added. That’s an $18 million per year deal, in excess of anything the O’s have given out for any one year, and of course it’s over the five years.
Still, it sucks. Santander was a fun Oriole, and a key part of the lineup as the team emerged from the basement of the league enjoyed success over the last three seasons. He hit a lot of delightful home runs, including Eutaw Street home runs. Now, whatever value he is able to provide will be going to a division rival who’s looking to get back ahead of the Orioles. If Elias ends up being as wrong about Santander’s aging as Dan Duquette was about Nelson Cruz, this will go down as one of his worst mistakes.
Santander’s Orioles tenure ends with him tied with Chris Davis with eleven Eutaw dingers. With two Jays series in Baltimore each year for the next few years and an O’s rotation that at least in 2025 is full of righties, Santander will have some more chances to tee off as a lefty and take the record for himself. Hopefully it only happens during an Orioles blowout victory.
Since the contract’s value exceeds $50 million guaranteed to Santander, this does lock in that the Orioles will receive a compensation pick for losing him that comes in after the first round of the 2025 draft. The Orioles already have one such pick for losing Corbin Burnes.
As things currently stand, these picks will come in at #30 and #31, adding to the O’s regular pick at #19 in the first round. If Elias can return to his 2019/2020 success in drafting in that range, that will ease the sting over the long run of losing Santander. If he doesn’t, then O’Neill better hit a bunch of dingers.